


clown wars

by Belfire



Category: Batman - All Media Types, IT - Stephen King, Joker (2019)
Genre: Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Crossover, Hurt Damian Wayne, Jason and Dick and Tim are all good brothers, Unlikely Team-Ups, damian needs to be rescued, monstrous clowns of many kinds, sides aren't of value when its family, the joker is severely difficult to decipher as a person and his values are even less clear
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:47:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26108188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Belfire/pseuds/Belfire
Summary: A run-of-the-mill chase sequence between The Joker and his oldest enemy turns into something entirely different when The Joker and Robin find themselves alone, and another, a new, and utterly terrifying clown decides to join them. He has an apparent... appetite for children. Little Robin looks quite tasty.And no one believes one deranged clown about another. Who would? It's insanity out here.
Kudos: 45





	clown wars

**Author's Note:**

> I don't care what you say, me being on a writing hiatus for months and then returning with a shitty crossover that's first chapter is literally titled "A-Maze-Ball" is fricken hysterical.

_“- AHAHAHAHA-!!”_ The Joker shrieked with laughter. He waved his gun and in his other hand, a dagger with a blade stained by the blood of three people whose faces he couldn’t remember. Batman and his brightly coloured little mini-me chased the clown, as was their routine, and today, the Joker thought it was a hilarious and clever turn of events for him to take the hunt under Gotham City; to the sewers. It was like a game of rats in a labyrinth - or a riveting round of _A-Maze-Ball!_

Disgusting greywater splashed high up their legs with every rapid footfall. The discoloured water was all the way up to Robin’s knees and it smelled absolutely _revolting,_ but luckily for Joker, he lost his sense of smell years ago. The punchline of snorting ghost chilli powder didn’t exactly land the way it was supposed to. 

But the accidents of life were all one great big joke and only sour pusses didn’t laugh when a good joke was cracked. 

Still, there was _one_ man who didn’t get The Joker’s humour. The amount The Bat had aged since they met really showed with the way his patience had lessened; he was too much of a grandpa to play for hours and hours nowadays. Joker was sure it was that _kid_ (kids), the prospect of fatherhood, that wore Batsie to the rim. He’d lost count of how many Batlings there’d been at this point but felt like every few years, there was a new boy _\- or girl! -_ running around Gotham in a yellow cape. 

Things always got more complicated when children were added to the equation, Batman’s and the Joker’s relationship just wasn’t the same anymore. Not with that twerp involved. 

It was probably past Robin’s bedtime or something, Batman wanted to end this quick; he shot a grappling gun at his oldest enemy’s back, out of a sheer lack of desire to run around the sewers for as long as it would take to catch the clown at this rate. The grapple wrapped around the Joker’s arm and pulled tautly, its claws slicing through his purple sleeve and some skin along with it too. But the sudden burst of pain and warmth of blood wasn’t the worst offence. Not by far.

“ - You _dastardly fiend!”_ The Joker screamed, taking long enough from his escape to pause and see the damage done to his empirically coloured coat. “I made this suit myself! I’ll have to replace the _whole sleeve,_ I shan’t have stitches in the middle of - _urk!”_

Batman jerked the grapple and pulled the clown’s face onto the fist he put out to meet it, rewarded by the sound of Joker’s teeth slamming shut on the tip of his tongue. A muffled squeak preluded the explosion of crimson darker than the smeared lipstick, spilling from between the clown’s lips.

“B - _Bastard!”_ The Joker coughed blood from his mouth, stumbling back with the loose grapple falling from around his arm. Pulling a face, he spat out the tiny piece of his tongue that he bit off and ignored the swell of pain to the best of his abilities. Red drip-dropped from his chin, ruined his makeup, and landed in the murky water, flowing away to the direction of its current. If there were any predators down there, they might be attracted by the smell of it. Sewer sharks would just be the cherry on top of the cake that was today. 

“Stand down, Joker,” Batman growled his command like a primordial wildman, taking a tense fighting stance. And - _of course_ \- Robin stood at his right hand, at the ready to react to an attack. 

“How about _no!”_ Had he forgotten about the gun in his hand up until then? Well, he remembered that he had it now, and he opened _full,_ unadulterated fire on the two, filling the tunnel with the bangs of automatic power and his bloody cackle. Glee came alight in his deranged eyes to see the masked ‘heroes’ dart for cover, running like a scattering of geese at the park! 

But _oh bother!_ The clip ran empty too fast and then the Joker was running fast too, discarding the gun over his shoulder because if he was going to get away, he’d have to put The Flash to shame. And _just maybe,_ Plastic Man too, since he happened to take a sharp left turn into a tunnel blocked off by a grid. The bars had barely thirty-centimetres between them but it was this way or the Bat way, and only one of those would allow him to go home tonight and eat the birthday cake he stole in the morning. 

Knowing which he preferred, the clown didn’t brake and slammed into the grid, pushing himself sideways through the bars. It was an extremely tight squeeze - _he popped a button!_ \- but maybe his slippery blood acted something like lubricant because he stumbled out onto the other side almost like nothing. 

“HA!” The Joker gave a bark of laughter, thrilled with himself for his accomplishment. And then he took off running again, confident that there was no way a big manly man like The Bat would be getting between those bars, but the youngest of his litter was the exact size of a _breadcrumb,_ and he was through without the effort of squeezing.

_“ - Robin!”_ Batman called after his boy, rightfully unwilling to let the kid go off alone with his clowney enemy, but it went in one ear and out of the other. Oh, Robin 5.0... hadn’t 2.0 taught him a thing? 

“Come back here, clown!” Robin yelled. He had a trace of an accent, Middle Eastern if The Joker’s ear wasn’t mistaken, and he wondered if it was really true that Batman stuck his dick in Ra’s al Ghul’s daughter. 

“That’s _not_ how we play tag!” The Joker called back, his footsteps more like bounds. No more gun to play with, it was just him and his dagger but he was more than confident that between the two of them, they could take a little birdy. 

If Batman was calling it quits at the grid, then tousling with his kiddo should still be enjoyable. But no, Joker didn’t feel like killing the mite today. He wasn’t in the mood. 

But then, maybe he’d just see where the evening took him. He didn’t like the plan too far ahead, it ruined surprises. 

On each other’s heels like hound dogs, the two of them burst into a cistern filling to the knees with rain and sewage water, pouring in from more pipes than could be counted. Above their heads, high up on the impossibly far-away ceiling was a grate that let in some odd moonlight but it hardly got through the storm clouds, much less penetrated the _underground_ of Gotham’s underground. 

“Stop!” Robin hurled a little bird-themed weapon at the Joker’s back, and it would have struck deep had he not ducked right on time. The batarang _(bird-a-rang?)_ went spinning over his head and sunk into the wall somewhere.

“Next one goes in your head!” The kid shrieked but he and Joker both knew it would be a cold day in hell before Batsy ever allowed that. 

He was such a boring old Bob.

“Oh with the _commands_ , _little bird.”_ Joker stopped running long enough to spin around to face the boy. “The first Boy Wonder was a _barrel of laughs!_ The second, third, and fourth were fun too but _you?_ You’re just too _serious!”_ He shouted it out like an insult because to him, it was. An insult of the highest calibre. 

“I’m not playing games with you, clown.” Robin grit. His stance was wide and combat-ready, a sword clutched in his gloved hand. It wouldn’t be another minute before Daddy Bats came rushing in through another exit, so they had to do this fast. 

“Existence _itself_ is a game! And if you spend your entire life frowning, you’ll be getting botox injections at _twenty-”_

Joker’s and Robin’s attention was drawn away by a soft little sound that they heard, coming from a large tunnelway that entered the cistern. A tiny little tinkling, like a silver bell. 

From the mouth of the tunnel, stared back a white face and yellow eyes. A forehead the size of a mountain stretched up from those eyes, cracked like a porcelain doll, and dry carrot-coloured hair sprouted in ridiculous angles from the top of its head. A hideous, scraggly whitish-grey circus outfit hung loosely around its lanky frame, making the whole look utterly laughable. And not in a good way. 

What… an unfunny clown. It just looked at them, holding a bright red balloon while a string of drool rolled down from its thick bottom lip. No one was in its head, not behind those eyes. Nothing.

Where did this thing come from? How long had it been there?

_“Erm…”_ The Joker frowned. His green eyebrows knit together, a bothered frown creasing his brow. He stared at the creature. And the creature stared back. Be it blankly.

“... I think you have my gimmick?” The Joker was confused. What was this? Another clown in Gotham? Not on his watch. Absolutely not.

_“Who_ are you?” Robin barked authoritatively, jerking his chin up at the second clown, who just continued to stand frozenly and study open-space. The line of saliva that had been descending from its mouth finally broke off at its chin and landed like a drop of rain at its pom-pommed shoes. 

“One of your friends, I presume?” From the corner of his little green domino mask, Robin’s film-covered eyes narrowed on The Joker, his upper lip curling to reveal his pointed teeth. He was snarling, like some sort of pupper… how cute. The boy presented himself as a vicious tiger but he was a kitten, at best.

But kitten aside, he was deadly. So said the way he moved both of his hands to grip the hilt of his raised sword, holding the point upright while he lined the blade with the second clown, measuring his target.

“I can assure you, I don’t know who this is.” The Joker admitted to Robin, quite as confused as he. Momentarily, he broke his eye-contact off the other clown to look at Robin, but when he returned it, something had changed. That vacant, empty and hollowed-out look on the other clown’s face had become a disturbingly wide smile with rows of daggers for teeth, extending far down its maw. They went into its throat. Maybe further than that? A wicked, sadistic glimmer lit up the yellowing whites of its eyes.

It extended its arm towards them, the arm that held the bright red balloon, and it offered it to them. 

“Wanna play?” It asked. The Joker was quite unprepared for the sound of its voice, so juvenile yet somehow, so evil at once. It was an ancient kind of sinister, the sort that sent chills to the bone for an instinctual reason only their ancestors might remember. Just what was this thing? _Fear._ It was impossible to say how that was the reality, how he came to this conclusion so fast, but that’s what Joker knew this thing was. _Fear._

He felt it. 

It was so wrong in so many ways. Twisted. Sinful. For _him_ to say that, it truly had to mean something. A strong urge to run away just radiated from this… _thing,_ in waves but fight and freeze were also enticed by its presence. 

“Eh… kiddo,” Uncharacteristically concerned, The Joker began, glancing to Robin at his left. “I don’t think we should-”

_“Nyah!”_ Ignoring the Joker’s words, the boy whipped a bird-a-rang from his pocketed belt and in seconds, it left his fingertips and lodged itself deep into the other clown’s shoulder, popping the balloon along the way.

But the other clown didn’t react. Not even flinch. It lowered the arm holding the now tattered remains of the balloon while its smile flitted wider. It opened its index and thumb, pinched around the string of its balloon, and before that string could hit the surface of the water pooled around their feet, the second clown lunged.

It moved in a blur. The Joker couldn’t keep his eyes on it as the monstrous creature cannonballed into Robin. The room shook. The lighting flashed. The Joker heard Robin scream in pain or terror, then his sword go flying across the room without a single splatter of blood spilled in self-defence. 

_“Hey!_ That’s not yours!” Offended, The Joker yelled and ran at the creature with his dagger raised, only to be knocked back by a third arm, sprouting from the monster’s flank. It smashed into his face and he tasted blood. The blow was incredibly hard, comparable to an iron gauntlet hitting him, and he must’ve been out for a few because the next thing The Joker remembered was being alone in the cistern.

And _blood._ So, so much blood spreading through the filthy water, right where the kid had just stood. He was gone. And so was the other clown. The screaming was replaced for complete and haunting silence.

Grimacing, The Joker covered the split in his forehead with his hand as he staggered to his feet. He looked around. To say he was shaken by that encounter would be an understatement, and the Clown Prince of Crime was seldom shaken.

But he couldn’t catch his breath. Or his thoughts. He had no idea what just happened… what he’d just witnessed.

_“R - Robin?”_

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to - nay, had to write something. This is what I wrote. Because turns out, things can only get so shit before I resort to distracting myself from life with fanfiction again.


End file.
